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Emile Durkheim Theories

Introduction

Emile Durkheim

Emile Durkheim (Epical, France, 15 April 1858 - Paris, 15 November 1917) was a sociologist French. The formally established as an academic discipline considered one of the founding fathers of the science. Durkheim created the first department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux in 1895, published The Rules of Sociological Method. In 1896 he created the first journal devoted to sociology. His influential monograph, The Suicide (1897), a study of suicide rates between Catholic and Protestant populations, was a pioneer in social research and served to distinguish the social science of psychology and political philosophy. In his classic work, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912) compared the cultural lives of Aboriginal and modern societies, which gained even more reputation. For him sociology was the science of institutions, and their goal was to discover social facts structural. Durkheim was a major supporter of structuralism functionalism, a foundational perspective for both sociology and for anthropology. In his view, the social sciences should be purely holistic, and sociology should study the phenomena attributed to society as a whole rather than focusing on the specific actions of individuals.

Discussion

Durkheim's sociological theories and criticism

Earlier sociologists saw sociology not as an autonomous field of research, but through psychological or organic approaches. Durkheim also argued that society was something outside and within the individual at the same time, because this takes and internalize their values ??and morals. The social fact has a strong capacity for coercion and restraint on the individual. Thus the social fact cannot be reduced to simple psychological data, and the collective takes precedence over individual thought, being then society, not the individual, the primary unit of analysis in sociology.

Division of labor

In various works such as "social division of labor" and "Education and Sociology" Durkheim argued that modern society maintains the cohesion or union because solidarity. Durkheim found that two types: organic solidarity and mechanical solidarity. The first is that which occurs in industrial societies as a result of the division of labor in enterprises, which causes people to become increasingly different from each other and sense of belonging to a group that predominates in small communities or in the family may fade. The second is that which occurs in rural communities, families and groups of best friends, where relationships and communication are face to face.

Elementary Forms of Religious Life

According to Durkheim, religion is created in moments of what he calls 'collective effervescence'. These moments come when all individuals of a group gathered to communicate in one mind and in the same action. Once people assembled there emerges a kind of reconciliation of electricity which quickly transports them to an extraordinary degree of exaltation.

Criticism of his theory of religion

The theory of religion Durkheim has been repeatedly criticized, especially by supporters of the Christian Church who saw in his theory an attack against the traditions of the West and religious faith in general. Other specific elements of his theory have been criticized by ...